‘Designers should be proud to dress Melania Trump’: Tommy Hilfiger leads the pro-Melania fashion pack, by Caroline Leaper.
The fashion community has so far been divided in its consideration of how to ‘treat’ Melania Trump. Designers and media outlets, from the Council of Fashion Designers of America to US Vogue, had officially endorsed Hillary Clinton, and so when Donald Trump won the election, there were immediately whispers of snobbery and snubbing, with refusals to lend clothes to the new First Lady.
But now, the first designer name has put himself out there to say that he would be delighted to dress Mrs Trump. American fashion stalwart Tommy Hilfiger has thrown his hat into the ring, saying simply; ‘I don’t think people should become political about it.’
‘I think Melania is a very beautiful woman and I think any designer should be proud to dress her,’ Hilfiger told WWD. ‘Ivanka is equally as beautiful and smart, although she wears her own clothes. Everyone was very happy to dress Michelle [Obama] as well. I think they look great in the clothes. You’re not gonna get much more beautiful than Ivanka or Melania.’
Prior to his comments, the rumblings had been mostly negative towards her, as supermodel Gigi Hadid did a mocking Melania impression in front of millions of millennials at the American Music Awards on Sunday night:
Imagine the frame of mind required to find that funny. Oh well.
‘As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next first lady,’ she wrote. ‘The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by.’ Both Hadid’s impression and Theallet’s letter were met with some backlash on social media.
What normally keeps merchants (in the widest sense) politically neutral is desire for profits. Gigi Hadid will lose customers and fans.
A “merchant” does not gain customers through political advertising, unless perhaps their “product” is politics itself, but they can lose them. People decide whether to “buy” or not depending on the usual factors like quality versus price. To buy from them, a customer must want to buy their product based on quality, price etc, and not be too annoyed at them over politics. A lesson lost on some now in their zest for PC virtue signalling. Moral vanity can cost a business dearly.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
